[An Nahar] Taliban gunnies on Wednesday dragged two young Afghan men from their car and shot them dead because they worked for NATO...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... troops as interpreters, police said.

The bloodied bodies of the men were found next to their car on the side of a road in Pashtun-infested Logar province, less than 80 kilometers south of the capital Kabul.

"They were interpreters working for NATO troops in Camp Shank," Din Mohammad Darwish, the provincial administration front man, told Agence La Belle France Presse, referring to a NATO outpost in the province. He blamed Taliban gunnies for the attack.

Deputy provincial police chief Rais Khan Sadeq confirmed the incident and said the pair were driving to work from Kabul when killed.

"They were going to work. Along the road they were stopped by Taliban, dragged from their car and shot in the head. Their bodies and their car were found on the side of the road," Sadeq told AFP.

UN Chief 'Extremely Concerned'
[Al Ahram] A local staff member with the UN's peacekeeping force in the Abyei region contested by Sudan and South Sudan has been killed in an incident that followed a tribal dispute, a UN official told AFP on Wednesday.
The employee, a member of the Dinka tribe, "was shot and killed" on Tuesday, Damian Rance, a public information officer with the UN's humanitarian agency in Khartoum, told AFP.

The staffer died as a result of festivities between Dinka protesters and the UN's Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA), the front man for UN chief the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... said in New York.

"Today one national staff member departed this vale of tears and another sustained an injury as a result of festivities in Abyei between UNISFA and Ngok Dinka demonstrators," Martin Nesirky said late on Tuesday.

"UNISFA has established checkpoints and is monitoring movements into Abyei. UNISFA's leadership is also meeting with Dinka and Misseriya representatives in an effort to defuse tensions."

Rance said he understood that tensions rose on Monday when Misseriya tribal chiefs went to a meeting in Abyei town with the head of UNISFA. This caused tensions with members of the Dinka tribe.

"UNISFA put up security and the crowd dispersed," Rance said.

The deadly clash occurred the following day.

Early Wednesday UN chief Ban condemned "the series of incidents that occurred in Abyei in the past 48 hours" and urged the communities to resolve their disputes through dialogue.

In a statement, Ban said he remained extremely concerned that joint institutions, including police for the Abyei area, have not yet been established and urged the parties quickly to address the issue.

[Bangla Daily Star] Jamaat-e-Islami...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir... the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh... once again swooped on law enforcers yesterday, the last day of Jamaat's nine-day programme, leaving about 20 coppers injured in Dhaka, Khulna and Cox's Bazar.

They launched sudden attacks on police and vandalised around 30 vehicles in the capital's Farmgate and Karwanbazar. Jamaat-Shibir men also torched the cycle of violence of a traffic police sergeant and attacked roadside business establishments in the areas.

Khulna City Jamaat called a dawn-to-dusk hartal... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... for today protesting the arrest of Golam Parwar, former politician and Jamaat assistant secretary general, on Sunday night in connection with violence and attacks on police.

Panic gripped Farmgate and Karwanbazar areas when several hundred Jamaat-Shibir men suddenly launched attacks on law enforcers at around 4:30pm.

Witnesses said the attackers beat up law enforcers with sticks and hurled brickbats and stones at coppers, vehicles and roadside establishments.

Police picked up 16 Jamaat-Shibir men from the spot.

In the meantime, Khulna City Jamaat demanded immediate release of Parwar and all placed in durance vileYou have the right to remain silent... activists of Jamaat and Shibir.

Earlier, Jamaat-Shibir men clashed with police on Shamsur Rahman road in the city. Four people, including two coppers, were maimed in the incident.

Police placed in durance vileYou have the right to remain silent... three Shibir activists from the spot.

The clash ensued when police intercepted a procession brought out by Jamaat-Shibir men at about 1:00pm in protest of Parwar's arrest, said witnesses and police.

When Jamaat-Shibir men pelted police with brickbats, the police fired teargas canisters to bring the situation under control, said OC Shahbuddin Azad of Khulna Sadar Police Station.

Law enforcers arrested at least 65 Jamaat-Shibir activists in Dinajpur following attacks on coppers on Monday afternoon.

Jamaat-Shibir men enforced a daylong hartal in Joypurhat protesting the death of a Shibir activist. Several vehicles were set ablaze during the hartal.

In Cox's Bazar, Shibir men launched attacks on police when law enforcers intercepted their procession at around 3:00pm.

Two copperswere maimed. Law enforcers arrested four Shibir men in this connection.

Rab arrested two Jamaat-Shibir cadres from Islami Bank Institute of Technology in Bogra at about 11:50am for attacking police and vandalising a police van on November 5 in the town.

In Chapainawabganj, police arrested three Jamaat-Shibir men on Monday night on charge of creating chaos.

Six Jamaat-Shibir men were arrested in Bagerhat for bringing out a procession in the town defying police orders.

[Bangla Daily Star] It was a planned attack by the Jamaat-Shibir men. Or so it seemed. They snatched the rifle from a policeman and beat him with its butt, injured over a dozen other law enforcers, attempted to hack a Jubo League... the youth wing of the Bangla Awami League... leader and attacked law minister's private secretary's car -- all on the capital's main thoroughfares yesterday afternoon.

But that is not all. The Islamist party men torched police cycle of violences, vandalised three news vans and dozens of public and private vehicles and beat up the common people indiscriminately.

These were only a few snap shots of the guerilla-style attack from a procession of the Islami Chhatra Shibir... the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh..., a pro-Jamaat-e-Islami...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... student wing, at Farmgate and Karwan Bazar.

It was not the first time that the Jamaat-Shibir men went on the rampage and maimed police personnel. They have done so almost every day since November 5 in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country.

On November 4, the Jamaat announced a nine-day agitation programme beginning from November 5 to press home its demand for the immediate release of the party's top leaders, including those facing war crimes trial. Till Monday, more than 200 coppers, at least 300 people and three journalists were maimed during festivities between the police and Jamaat-Shibir men across the country.

They ended their protest programme yesterday through a targeted attack on the law enforcers in an unprecedented manner, leaving about 20 coppers injured in Dhaka, Khulna and Cox's Bazar.

Noticeably, the police role during these attacks throughout the week seemed very unusual. They either tried to escape those attacks or were just silent observers, witnesses said.

Only a few coppers went on a counter attack, mainly in self-defence, they added.

Never in the past had police played such a passive role during a political violence.

[Al Ahram] A spate of apparently coordinated attacks across Iraq on the eve of a Mohammedan festival marking the Islamic new year killed 15 people and maimed more than 100 others on Wednesday, officials said.
The 11 bombings and shootings struck in Storied Baghdad...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... and six other cities, the security and medical officials said, and will likely raise tensions in a country mired in political deadlock and only relatively recently emerged from a brutal sectarian war.

No group immediately grabbed credit for the violence, but Al-Qaeda's front group in Iraq frequently carries out coordinated bombings and attempts mass-casualty attacks in a bid to destabilise the government through fomenting bloodshed.

Wednesday's deadliest blasts struck in Kirkuk,... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... a disputed ethnically mixed oil-rich province in north Iraq frequently targeted by Death Eaters seeking to sow communal violence, where at least nine people were killed and 39 maimed.

Two car booms and a roadside kaboom in Kirkuk's eponymous capital killed five people and maimed 34 others, while another explosives-packed vehicle targeting an army patrol in the town of Hawijah, also in Kirkuk province, left four dead and five others maimed, officials said.

#6
Check out Groms link to the live blog, it's pretty intense. Paleo's are trying out their long game, trying to get in a lucky shot. But now, for once, targeting information is being acted on and quickly.

The head of the military wing of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, Ahmed Said Khalil al-Jabari, has been killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza City.

He and another senior Hamas official died when the car they were travelling in was hit.

It appears to have been the first step of an Israeli operation against militant groups in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

A series of air strikes are now being reported across Gaza.

The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) said it had launched "Operation Cloud Pillar" against Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups.

In recent days, Israeli officials had said they were considering assassinating senior figures in Hamas following a wave of heavy rocket-fire.

Mr Jabari, who was 46, is the most senior Hamas official to be killed in the Gaza Strip since the major Israeli offensive four years ago.

Israel's Shin Bet security service confirmed he had been targeted, saying he was responsible for "all terrorist activities against Israel from Gaza" in the last decade.

"Jabari was responsible for financing and directing military operations and attacks against Israel. His elimination today is a message to Hamas officials in Gaza that if they continue promoting terrorism against Israel, they will be hurt," it said.

Since Saturday, four Palestinian civilians and three militants, including Mr Jabari, have been killed in Gaza, and dozens injured. Eight Israelis have also been hurt.

Hamas spokesman Taher Anunu told BBC Arabic: "This was a heinous crime that will have repercussions.

"The Palestinian government will call for the trial of those responsible for the crime, and for hitting a civilian area, but the Palestinian factions have the right to respond in a way they see fit."

#1
Please let the Israeli government release a statement saying the missile was fired by a drone aircraft. I think they'll have to be that specific (true or not) to catch the attention of the American public and show that this is the same type of warcraft being practiced by Obama in Pakistan.

A man was killed and his body dumped on one side of a road in Narathiwat province on Tuesday morning. The body was identified as Sama-ae Mali from Rueso district.

Witnesses said Sama-ae was traveling on a motorcycle from his village to Rueso municipality. Some men followed him in a pick-up truck and opened fire at him with pistols. Sama-ae lost control of his vehicle and fell on the ground.

The attackers walked up to him and shot him in the head and body, killing him on the spot. They took his body and the motorcycle away in the pick-up truck, then dumped the body on the side of the road near Ban Sawo, and fled with the motorcycle.

Police suspected it was the work of terrorists militants. The stolen vehicle could later be used as a motorcycle bomb.

[An Nahar] Syrian army tanks shelled a refugee camp and two nearby districts in southern Damascus...The capital of Iran's Syrian satrapy... on Wednesday as battles raged and warplanes bombarded a rebel-held northwestern town, a watchdog said.

The tanks were deployed at the Paleostinian camp of Yarmuk overnight, as well as the nearby districts of Tadamun and Assali, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Both Yarmuk and Tadamun were scene of battles between the army and rebels late on Tuesday, said the Britannia-based Observatory.

On Wednesday morning, shells were fired into a second refugee camp east of Yarmuk, said the monitoring group, though it did not specify if they had been fired by the army or by rebels.

Fighting in Damascus has intensified in recent weeks, after the army put down a mid-summer rebel assault on districts particularly in the southern belt where anti-regime sentiment is strong.

The violence is linked to major, ongoing battles in several parts of Damascus province, chiefly in the area known as Eastern Ghuta east of the capital.

Elsewhere, fighter jets bombarded a rebel-held town in the northwestern province of Idlib, the watchdog said.

"The air force has carried out two air strikes on the town of Maaret al-Numan," said the Observatory.

Rebels seized Maaret al-Numan on October 9, and the army has since waged an unrelenting but unsuccessful offensive to take back the town strategically located on the highway linking Damascus and second city Aleppo...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins....

[An Nahar] Former prime minister Saad HaririSecond son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's liquidation. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too. on Tuesday hit back at Hizbullah chief His Eminence Sayyed Hassan NasrallahThe satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb..., defending Lebanese ForcesA Christian political party founded by Bashir Gemayel, who was then bumped off when he was elected president of Leb... leader Samir Geagea... Geagea was imprisoned by the Syrians and their puppets for 11 years in a dungeon in the third basement level of the Lebanese Ministry of Defense. He was released after the Cedar Revolution in 2005 ... and stressing that al-Mustaqbal... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri... Movement has never been an advocate of sectarian strife.

There are certain constitutional principles for ousting governments, unless Sayyed Hassan wants to write us a new constitution and wants to teach us that the new method for that (changing governments) is (national) dialogue, said Hariri after meeting Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi in Rome.

I don't think that it is appropriate for him to talk in this manner. There are written constitutional principles: either through the resignation of the premier or through losing the parliament's confidence or through the resignation of more than one third of ministers like what happened with the previous government, said Hariri.

The ex-PM accused Nasrallah of clinging to power, warning that it is clear that the party is willing to do everything in its capacity in order to remain in power.

Hariri also accused Hizbullah of interfering in Syria, voicing regret that jihadist fighters are being killed everyday while fighting alongside the Syrian regime.

[An Nahar] Military Tribunal Judge Saqr Saqr issued on Wednesday a search and investigation warrant against the son of Salafist holy man Ahmed al-Asir, Omar.

The warrant was issued on charges linked to an attempt to seize the weapons of security forces.

Saqr also issued an order to determine who was involved with Asir during Sunday's incident that witnessed a clash between him and an Internal Security Forces checkpoint in the southern city of Sidon.

The dispute broke out when the security members stopped a car with tinted windows that turned out to be driven by Omar al-Asir.

It was determined that he was not carrying a car license or another to drive a vehicle with tinted windows.

Asir promptly called for the assistance of his brute squad who arrived at the scene and attempted to release him from the security forces' custody by force.

They then left the scene with Omar al-Asir and headed towards his father's Bilal bin Rabbah Mosque.Meaning they succeeded in busting him out by force...
A clash had broken out later on Sunday between Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir and Hizbullah supporters. Two of Asir's companions and an Egyptian national died in the clash that was a product of sectarian tensions in Sidon.

A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.